October 14, 2024
University News
Idea Exchange
Speakers at the Faculty & Staff Research Symposium discussed topics ranging from global health and conspiracy theories to Cuban music and Jack the Ripper.
Department Mission Statement
The Department of Theatre & Dance is committed to diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice. These values are central to the department’s curriculum, scholarship, teaching, art-making practices, and programming. Each student will engage with these values through curricular, intellectual, artistic, and personal endeavors. We commit to finding strength in our diversity, cultivating multiple perspectives, eliminating barriers to participation in the field, and fostering social justice. We uphold these values in our classes, rehearsals, play selections, casting, and our collaborative artistic processes. We continuously build more inclusive and equitable theatre and dance by foregrounding marginalized peoples and histories in our planning and policy decisions. We value creative engagement at the crossroads of theatre, dance, and social justice, traditional and non-traditional theatre, and dance-making practices both on and offstage.
Accessibility to Art Fosters Community
The University of Richmond Department of Theatre & Dance believes in the power of theatre and dance to build community through art, and that access to the arts should not be limited in any way. In partnership with the School of Arts & Sciences, we have created the UR Free Theatre & Dance initiative in order to remove economic barriers and make theatre and dance accessible to everyone.
University Dancers
University Dancers/DANC 306 is an auditioned student dance company of the University of Richmond in the Department Theatre & Dance. Students receive academic credit for participating in University Dancers/DANC 306. Founded in 1985 by Myra Daleng, the company’s current artistic director is Anne Van Gelder.
Auditions are held at the beginning of the fall semester, and students study a variety of dance and movement techniques such as African, ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, jazz, modern, and non-traditional partnering in company classes (three per week), master classes, and rehearsals.
A member of UD (Danc 306) is not required to be a dance major or minor to be in the company.
Feature Stories
October 7, 2024
Student Chronicles
Year two at Richmond
A group of students from the Class of 2027 look back at their first year and reflect on their first few weeks as sophomores.
October 2, 2024
University of Richmond Launches New Humanities Center
The University of Richmond recently launched the Humanities Center, a campus-wide initiative that will foster student and faculty research in the many areas of scholarship that make up the humanities.
September 23, 2024
University News
Curtains up
Dean Jenny Cavenaugh returns to her theatrical roots as director of Stop Kiss.
Faculty Highlights
Herrera Published
Patricia Herrera, professor of theatre and dance, and Mariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, published the chapter “Cuir/Queer Afro-Cuban and Xicanx Transnational Encounters: Debora Kuetzpal Vasquez's Dualidad: Todas las partes de mi ser" in the volume Bodies on the Front Line: Performance, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Herrera Promoted
Patricia Herrera was promoted to professor of theatre and dance. Dr. Herrera's research explores the social inequities experienced by underrepresented communities, specifically as it relates to Latinx and African American diasporic communities as well as LGBTQ+ people of color.
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Herrera Awarded Grant
Dr. Patricia Herrera, associate professor in theatre and dance, along with UR colleagues was awarded grant support for the inter-campus collaborative project, "Participatory History and Archiving: An Initiative to Promote and Support Undergraduate Instruction and Project Outcomes in Community-Based Research and Archiving." Read More
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Herrera Published
Patricia Herrera, associate professor of theatre, published Nuyorican Feminist Performance From the Café to Hip Hop Theater University of Michigan Press.
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Contact Us
Mailing address:
Department of Theatre and Dance
Modlin Center for the Arts
453 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 289-8592
Fax: (804) 287-1841
Box office: (804) 289-8980
Interim Department Chair: Dr. Olivier Delers
Administrative Coordinator: Rhonda Jackson